7 responses to “Know Your Enemy”

Right now no one much cares about a few tickets, or about a convict not being released to go to his wife’s funeral – most people have bigger concerns. However, I was once told by a very astute high school history teacher of mine that revolutions come from those who have nothing left to lose. He warned that the authorities should be careful not to destroy hope, for when hope is gone there is nothing left to lose but one’s misery. Unfortunately, TPTB didn’t attend class that day – they are rapidly destroying the middle class, and making criminals of all who open their mouths to protest. They are creating legions of hopeless people…who may someday realize that they have nothing left to lose. That’s when the interesting part of history will begin.

FYI: urbansurvival.com is written by George Ure. He has a lot of things to say that either are reasonable or sound so. One of the things he talks about from time to time is the “predictive linguistics” business he is associated with. For example, in that linked piece:

“Clif’s got some data on timing and how much hard this kind of ‘policing’ will get – and when – in the new Shape report due out in 2½ weeks, or so.”

The explanation for how this is supposed to work is that they have some sort of analysis system that gathers topics of discussion from all over the net and measures trending moods throughout the general planetary population. The claim is also that they can predict things, such as stock market crashes or other social events, by understanding the underlying trends in the data and seeing what patterns show up.

This is a fascinating idea, and as written, it sounds worth investigating. It is also the sort of thing that is very very difficult to verify, because they do not publish their methodology.

Two things proved to me it was a scam, both in 2008. First, he had been predicting events of certain types – “equal economic and military components” or phrasing like that – for some time. When the Lehman Brothers collapse happened, he announced that was the fulfilling event. People who, six months after that event, went back and reread his predictions from six months before would find that what actually happened bore little resemblance to the tone and hints he had been using beforehand.

Second – and this was key, for me – he claimed that the earthquake that hit southeast Asia around that time was one of the other events his trends had been predicting. The problem is that such a result is quite impossible. Imagine a group of people sitting by a pond having a picnic. There are tensions within the group that at first are entirely hidden, but anyone who knows them all well can see that as certain topics get broached – entirely innocently – the likelihood of a sudden breakout of angry voices and shouting on all sides rises, and past a certain point becomes inevitable. This is using language to predict events. It is not possible, using such methods, to predict that a meteorite will fall out of the sky into the pond, splashing everyone with muddy water – but that is what he claims to have predicted; that a purely geological process is the RESULT of human discussions on the net – or possibly that human discussions on the net are the result of a geological process that has not happened yet. I’m all for cool new science, but when making claims this outlandish, he really needs to publicize his methods instead of keeping it hush-hush and trying to make money off it instead.

This is clear nonsense, and George Ure is a proven liar who is selling a scam.

Rollary there is more to it than that. Ure will be the first to tell you its a “rickety time machine” and its not a perfect science its an art. He is not selling anything for that matter. He gives it away. Cliff is the guy selling access to the Shape reports. You might also note that a number of studies at high brow universities and think tanks are currently being put into place to do the exact same thing that Cliff has been doing since 2001. Its not dead on and I would not bet the farm on the predictions but its another factor in understanding the possible future. it does not simply look at the topics being discussed on the internet. In your analogy of the friends sitting next to the pond you leave out a factor that the Shape process is supposed to take into account. The sixth sense that those folks sitting by the pond have. The unexplained sense that something is about to happen that many many people report before an event takes place. Call it paranormal if you will or at least an unknown process but the idea is that some factor that people posess allows them to preceive events in the not to distant future. On an individual basis this ability is limited to the immediate location and short time but at larger scales it may be far reaching. It influences the mood of people and their conversations and word choices. It is however blurry and not detailed enough to make a complete picture. There is despite the skeptical assertions, evidence to support this type of precognition. The future is not however set and it can change.So your group of folks sitting by the pond talking experience a negative turn of the conversation and several begin to feel like things just are not right. The casual observer will not be able to pick up on the dread creeping into the mood. Carefull analysis however would indicate that something negative is about to happen. If the group begin to express their dread in specific terms giving voice to the senses they are picking up it may give a clear indication that the something that is about to happen is related to a major event, a foreign body, or a disaster. While not specifically a rock from the sky it is indicative of danger and thus a tool that can provide guidance. Use it as you will or ignor it.

He does not release it for free. He comments about it and refers to it and never releases anything in full, just teasers, to get people interested enough to pay for it.

“just trust him, it’s not exact” is the exact same line fortune tellers and tarot card readers and charlatans have used throughout history. It’s bullshit, designed to take advantage of credulous human beings’ desperation to believe in having a special edge.

” The sixth sense that those folks sitting by the pond have. The unexplained sense that something is about to happen that many many people report before an event takes place.”

This does not exist in any meaningful degree. I don’t say it can’t exist; I do say it has not been measured and detected and proven to exist enough to actually affect anything. Until that happens, there’s no point in pretending it does. If it did, it would have been measured by now – enough effort has been put into trying to find it. The men who stared at goats would’ve found it – if anybody had real motivation to find such a thing, the US military did.

Publish the methodology. Until that is done, it’s a bullshit fast-talk scam.

I have been reading his site for about a year now and I have never seen him say “trust me”, nor have I ever seen him profess exact events or times or tell people to run to the hills like I have seen on plenty of other sites.
Assimilate it accordingly
You make some assumptions that the US military did not measure and find it. What makes you think they would tell you if they had? Those assumptions are wrong. Sorry, you just are not correct on this matter. Its a discussion for another board so I wont drag this out. We can just agree to disagree.